And Now This

To hear the minions of the mainstream media tell it, our choice as news consumers is between Edward R. Murrow or Walter Kronkite and the vast swamp of ignorance and mis- or disinformation that is the web. Yet as many are recognizing, events in Iran are being reported by those on the ground and a blogging community that is tapping into and reporting this information. Main stream media in general, and cable news outlets have until the past day or so not been real players.

As one blogger so aptly describes it

Today, as global geopolitics is shaken to its core by events in Iran, I turned on cable news this morning, and saw endless ads for a Larry King Jonas Brothers “interview”, Morning Joe yukking it up discussing Kuwaiti massage therapists, a video of a tomato throwing contest on CNN, talk radio blowhard Bill Bennett…and occasionally a phone call from Christiane Amanpour in Tehran. I can’t even bring myself to turn on the network morning programs, I might vomit.

All the while, I have been hitting refresh like a crazy person on this thread at Huffington Post, which reports on news organizations banned, reporters arrested, crowds building for a Mousavi rally as I post this, etc. etc. Huffington Post has no reporter on the ground, no international bureau, no satellite phones in Tehran, and yet, that is the most thorough news source on this story you can find.

As I am writing this, I am listening to PBS report on the Netanyahu speech on the limits to any future Palestinean state. This was all over the net two days before the speech, with details that have proved to be accurate. I commented on this on Saturday, a day after the information was available.

Ask yourself this: Where do you look when you want timely accurate information on a breaking story? If you are like me, it is to the collection of blogs and news sites that you follow regularly. Where is your 'go to' for a quick initial take on any subject? Wikipedia.

So news is becoming open source. And it requires a certain amount of sophistication to use. Isn't this a good thing? For those of us who are willing to learn and explore, we need not rely on unaccountable and unresponsive institutions to spoon feed us the news.